Anyone who lives in/migrated to Sweden ?

Hello people.
I don't know if I'm allowed to post a discussion which is not about a language, I hope so, haha.
So, I live in France and I'm currently learning swedish because I'm interested by Sweden and its culture. But when I read texts from people who travelled to Sweden, I feel like it's a bit exaggerated, I feel like they just show the "good side" of the country.
I would like to know how is life to Sweden, I would like to hear your experience (good and bad) about this country because, after all, I don't know very much about Sweden.
Thank you !

June 16, 2017

13 Comments

Hej! I live in Sweden, and I honestly believe that it is one of the best countries in the world to live in. Of course I may be partial because I'm born here but here are a few reasons why I think it's great: It's beautiful with its vast countryside and wild nature, the shifting of the seasons is exciting (even when it is dark all the time and cold and "horrible" it is charming and interesting to see nature in such different seasons and the fact that it is not always sunny and warm makes me appreciate spring and summer so much more), I feel safe in sweden, I can go out at night alone and not worry (being a woman I do not think I could do the same in many other countries), it is one of the most gender equal contries in the world (even though it is not yet completely equal) and its a free country. To mention a few great things.

My boyfriend has migrated to sweden from Italy and he thinks that it is great living here, he says that it feels like this is a country of possibilities, that you can do anything regarding studying and working or starting your own business. Yet he is a bit bothered by the colder climate and the fact that it is so expensive. This is one of the major downsides to sweden, it has become really expensive to live here, especially in the big cities.
So those are some of my thoughts on sweden :)

I meet a lot of people who have moved here and from what I can gather the major downsides of living here, generalizing their experiences, seem to be: 1. hard to get an aparment, 2. not a lot of sun, 3. very long queues in the health care system.

There are many good sides to living here, so what you perceive as "biased" my actually be the real deal. Are you planning to move here? You do know its mandatory to know how to go cross-country skiing, don't you? ;-) If you plan to move, it's crucial you grasp the language rather well to the point the Swedes don't recognise you as a 'foreigner' but rather as 'a Swede with a funny accent'.

Thanks everybody for your answers, it means a lot.
No, I didn't plane to move to Sweden for now. I'm only nineteen and I didn't visit this country yet. I'm just interested for now but I started learning the language.
I like winter so the fact that there is no a lot of sun is fine to me ;)
What about the fika tradition ? I always read about this but I recently saw this : http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/swedens-fika-tradition-is-exagerrated-2016-5/

Don't believe that article! Fika is very much alive. I'm Swedish and i enjoy fika all the time with friends. Of course it is possible that I have reached that age limit that the journalist talked about. (I'm 26 ) :)
But I guess it also varies depending on where you live and what you do. But i for one would not call fika a dead tradition.
I hope I'm not the only Swede who feels this way...

My boyfriend lives in Sweden and from what I've gathered its a great place aside from its difficult to find a place to live, jobs are harder to come by (I'm american so jobs are fairly easy compared to me) and the open immigration but that is probably biases. Also to get a drivers license, they get it at 18 and is on a type of "probation" till there 20th birthday where its a full license. If anything happens in those 2 years they can take your license away and you have to repeat test again ( which includes 10 test and several driving test from what he told me)

Regarding the driver's license I think that 18 is the age for most countries of the world. Also, you can start supervised driving from the age of 16 so that's earlier than most of Europe, from what I can tell.

From what I was told, they openly allowed refugees in and most European countries had open borders to allow easier trade. They've stopped allowing the open borders and I think are restricting the refugees allowed in at this point but that's what I've been told and not researched. I do know that from Denmark to Sweden I'll have to go through border control